Together In Time

Using a wealth of rare archival films, animation, and traditional New England fiddle music, Together in Time tells a 250-year history of an enduring form of community music and dance.

Together in Time: A Story of New England Contra Music & Dance explores the changing nature of community life through an enduring form of music and dance. The film traces the music’s arrival from the British Isles to New England in the 1750s, to its height in popularity following the American Revolution, to its near extinction and current revitalization in the twentieth century. Along the way we discover little-known country fiddlers like African American barber, John Putnam of Greenfield, Massachusetts, and world famous auto-magnate, Henry Ford, whose passions for this unique community music kept it glowing through the years. The present revived interest, begun in the Connecticut River Valley by the counter-culture movement during the 1970s, is a sharp contrast to the Ford era, demonstrating contra music and dance’s powerful ability to transcend cultural and political boundaries. Yet the story does not end there. In one of the film’s most moving sequences we understand how the music passes on from one generation to the next.